Clinton library report shows move to shared resources

Friday

Feb 28, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By Jan Gottesman MANAGING EDITOR

CLINTON — Last year, during budget season, the Bigelow Free Public Library (BFPL) Trustees told Clinton selectmen that full membership in the C/W MARS, which would give their patrons access to services across the region, would cost a significant amount of money.

During that meeting, the trustees said they would do more investigation and present more information.

The subsequent report, with a lower price, was presented last week at the Board of Trustees meeting.

"The trustees will be circulating the report to Mike Ward, FinCom and the selectmen during budget consideration season as it contains relevant information in support of the library's budgetary request of a line item for full membership fees for C/W MARS for FY15," said BFPL Trustee Gloria Parkinson. "The release of the interim report was prompted by the receipt of written confirmation on Feb. 6 from C/W MARS of the FY15 cost of full membership."

"The Bigelow Free Public Library is a good library. The trustees are committed to making it an even better one," said Trustee Chairman Nancy Starr. "With this in mind, the trustees have been looking at the many aspects of services the library offers, which include the electronic inter-loan service available to the people of Clinton."

That includes full membership in C/W MARS, which Starr said is "an essential service that the people of Clinton should have access to." In addition, starting on June 30, the affiliate membership in the organization will no longer be available.

"I think it's important to note that libraries in surrounding towns are full members," Parkinson said. "Their patrons have access to millions of library items, which they can conveniently reserve ... in other words, a 24/7 service that the trustees feel the people of Clinton should have, too." These items not only include books, but eBooks and other digital material."

The report "describes advances made over the past two years by the BFPL Trustees to guarantee that the standard of service offered to BFPL patrons is comparable with the standard of service most public libraries, regardless of size, offer their patrons in today's digital age — standards that those patrons now regard as 'the norm' for library services."

According to the report, available on the library's website, "Two current priorities of the BFPL Trustees are to ensure that the BFPL's collection and services compare favorably with collections and services provided by libraries in surrounding towns and that 24/7, full access to resource sharing, as enjoyed by patrons of surrounding libraries, may be enjoyed by BFPL patrons."

Last year, the Trustees said that full membership into C/W MARS, a network of 155 member libraries, would cost $34,491 a year, plus one-time start-up costs, in part because of the number of books in the library's holdings, many of which were older books not requested by patrons for many years. These older books were housed in nonhandicapped-accessible stacks, which were not open to the public.

The Trustees have been negotiating with C/W MARS, and the membership cost for the next fiscal year has been reduced to $15,967, excluding one-time start-up costs.

"And because the library's current affiliate membership is $5,508, it means to become full members, with all the benefits and cost savings full membership brings, it costs $10,459 more than the affiliate cost," Starr said.

"The reason for this decrease relates to reassessing the number of the library's holdings," according to the report. "This reassessment process (described later in the report) does not include a dramatic liquidation of the library's collection. It is based on obtaining accurate numbers of the items actually in the library's collection. The Trustees emphasize that the reassessed numbers are not based on draconian measures to liquidate the collection."

According to reports, the Trustees went through and counted everything in the collection, using advice from the Mass. Library Systems.

"As a result of investing time and effort in October 2013, the Trustees are confident that they have an accurate count going forward,"according to report. The total holdings count was set at 90,405.

"We should emphasize that we'll never know how the high numbers got started because they started many, many years ago," Parkinson said. "Certainly no recent library directors were responsible."

To maintain the quality of the library's collection, according to the report, "because of shelf-space limitation, it's necessary to remove certain items from the collection, a process known as 'weeding.' All libraries that purchase new items routinely weed their collections."

It is not an easy task.

"By definition, library trustees love books," Starr said. "So we understand it can be difficult to accept the reality that a library can't keep every book forever. Making sure a library's collection stays up-to-date, contains accurate information and the items look attractive, plus having finite shelf space on which to display items, means that libraries, Clinton included, have to let items go from time to time."

Parkinson said there are two aspects of the library's collection.

"The older items in the collection are those in the closed stacks and these are currently being evaluated by antiquarian book appraisers and preservation specialists," Parkinson said. "This process of evaluation is not yet complete and these materials are not subject to maintenance weeding."

The library "does not arbitrarily throw out items," Parkinson said. "First, we offer them to organizations and agencies in Clinton; then, via the Friends of the Bigelow Library, we try and sell them; and, finally, unsold books go to a company that resells them globally and the library receives a percentage of the sales. However, because we're increasing in-house space for ongoing book sales, we're not using the company at this time."

Parkinson said the interim report contains details, as well as a "head's up" about updating the library's 5-year plan over the summer.

"We really hope people read the interim report and, over the next months, make suggestions."

The report is available at: http://bigelowlibrary.wordpress.com/test/board-of-trustees-update/.

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